Archive for the politics Category

How far will religious extremists go to exert control over those who do not subscribe to the beliefs that the extremists champion? We do not have to look toward foreign nations such as Iraq or Syria or insanity of Isis to find examples of harsh, underhanded religious misconduct and deceit that the aggressively devout claim is carried out in the name of morality. We need look no further than the halls of the US Congress to find religious guerillas, and in the tax-free charities, and even find religious fanatics contaminating the ranks of our nation’s armed forces. How low these misguided faith warriors are willing to go is astonishing, for much of what they do to impose their faith upon others flies in the face of what their own scriptures teach. Such conduct of religious extremists is also unconstitutional.

The United States rose to greatness because it extended the rights of personal freedoms to its citizens, which included the freedom to believe or not believe in some never seen deity. There is spiritual strength in tolerance which is power beyond man-invented dogma. Those blinded by some ritualized “faith” will always fail to understand that attacking others in acts of spiritual sabotage will not unlock the gates of Heaven. One of the worst sins, if sins can really be graded, is to get swept up in spiritual pride for, if scriptural accounts are consulted, spiritual elitism has no place in God’s domain–for all things stand equal before the Creator. Seeking to impose some brand of man-contrived “faith” upon others therefore is not to practice one’s faith, but is the indulgence in activist politics of this imperfect world.

So we may ask: How far will religious extremists go to exert control over those of us who do NOT subscribe to self-serving belief systems that the extremists champion? Apparently a sewer atmosphere offers the extremists their best view of Heaven. Consider: Not so long ago, back in 2009, the military was screening service persons through the “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness” test (CSF), an alleged “holistic fitness program” which purportedly employed as a means to reduce the number of post-traumatic stress disorder cases that often led to suicide.

The test was allegedly an experimental Army mental-health and fitness project which had a critical portion in it devoted to what can only be termed the spirituality measurement of the one being tested. In practice it amounted to a religious test on service men and women who put themselves in harms way to protect what is professed to be the land of freedom. Clearly this type of “testing” tramples on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Indeed, Clause 3 of Article 6 of the body of the US Constitution explicitly declares it to be illegal to use any form of religious test in correlation with any government service. Perhaps we should note here that this so-called “fitness assessment” test happened to have been designed by the same psychologist who inspired the CIA’s torture program which was okayed with the blessing of the Republican administration of “born again” George W. Bush

In that sham of psychological practice, the standard for judging a person’s mental desirability was that the test required enlistee to believe in God or some similarly imagined “higher power” deity to qualify as “spiritually fit” to serve in the US military. The questions in that test were specifically written to approve only those who believed in God or similar entity and bar any nonbelievers from training. The test subjects had to measure up to the psychologist’s arbitrary level of spirituality. In other words, the test had been intentionally (devilishly) designed so that nonbelievers (of which the psychologist disapproved) were discriminated against. Military service persons were thus being entrapped and attacked for their asserted “lack of belief” as determined by religious fanatics who had wormed themselves into positions to pass judgment.

Thankfully there are persons of conscience and genuine integrity standing sentry against such mockery of true democratic principles being practiced by those religious fanatics who entrench themselves within military ranks. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which currently represents many hundreds of Army soldiers who were once subjected to the so-called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness test, stepped in and strongly objected to the Secretary of the Army and to the Army’s Chief of Staff in regard to that travesty of true freedom. According to released Defense Department documents, after that registered objection the “spiritual” portion of the CSF test was then rated as being the Army Chief of Staff’s “third highest priority.” That, too, is curious.

Just what seemed more important than combating the spiritual sabotage of service men and women and be positioned as “third” in importance in its relationship to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to our Constitution? In seeking to impose spiritual subjugation upon our service men and women who are willing to fight for our country’s freedom of religion or from religion was apparently trivialized as being of only “third in importance”. Our Founding Fathers, who sought freedom from obligatory faith requirements, must be weeping.

Special interest handouts by political office holders in the United States have become big-time “faith” privileges over the last few decades, increasing dramatically after the Religious Right gained control of the Grand Old Party in 1996. The fast changing legal status for churches and faith system institutions have not been shy in underhandedly trying to “liberate” religious organizations by granting them more lenient rules than is permitted to their secular counterparts.

Such deliberate disregard for the democratic principles by religious extremists holding congressional positions, such a separation of church and state, is hardly due to any spiritual morals. This dangerous and frightening chipping away at long standing principles of democracy has occurred under pressure from extremist religious groups that have muscled their way into the political arena. The deviously devoted never make it comprehensible as to why an “omniscient/omnipotent” God should or would have to rely upon the use of deceitful persons to achieve “his” intentions. But the raucous, self-serving religious extremists have effectively infiltrated our Congress, the US Supreme Court , and federal and state courts, all of which have too often casually conceded to the demands that “faith” groups (Christian only) should be protected from any government impositions! (Related blogs: Rise of Holy Agitators, September 1, 2016; Spiritual Vanity, The Sin ofFundamentalism, October 1, 2016)

This has been pushed upon the nations’s widely diverse citizenry by devious religious fanatics who paint themselves with false eminence that reflects neither the principles of true democracy nor any higher spiritual values. These predatory religious wolves have accomplished this betrayal of democratic principles by camouflaging themselves with traditional sheep’s clothing. Thus disguised they have methodically selected, one by one, various supporting regulations of democratic comportment by inserting into those regulations their faith system’s claims of exclusivity with the Creator. This has purposefully disfigured and betrayed the numerous longstanding laws of equality and spiritual freedom that the “fathers” of the nation intended. As a consequence so many democratic principles have been mauled to such an extent that the “faith” pretenders may often thumb their noses at requirements leveled upon everyone else. As an example, their “public” buildings and organizational programs may be only slightly related to their faith system. That bears the foul odor of theocratic ideology.

Under these contrived special-interest allowances, unethically obtained, even the day care centers that have religious affiliations were once actually exempted from licensing requirements in a number of states. In Texas, for example, the religious day-care facilities and drug-treatment programs were once exempt from state licensing. However, protected by their privileged status by the “faithful” serving in state government positions the abuse and disregard for patients in those facilities proved to be greater than in nonreligious facilities. Another example: The health care system operated by the Seventh Day Adventists was actually allowed to bar nurses from joining unions. And many states permit tax-free churches build or expand their facilities in ways that clearly violate zoning ordinances with which everyone else must comply. Religious-front operations have routinely discriminated in choice of employees, or have expressed their piety in heartless neglect of employee misfortune. In these faith system front operations even persons that may suddenly be stricken with some physical malady have been unceremoniously dumped, which would never be tolerated in non-religious organizations. How these self-serving practices follow the teachings attributed to Jesus, such as “love one another“, or “do unto others as you would have done unto you” is never explained by them.

Special privileges which have been extended by faith aggressive politicians into government to certain (Christians only) faith system organizations is not fair or just or moral in a nation that has been built upon dedication to the freedom of choice and the pursuit of happiness. And practicing bigotry and narrow mindedness as some religiously obsessed do is neither righteous nor spiritual in a Creation which is rampant with lavish diversity of life and variety of expression. A true democratic society can function only within conditions of equality and respect for each individual within the nation. Attempting to inject one particular man-concocted faith system into the politics of a nation which has been dedicated to freedom and liberty for its diverse people can only accomplish catastrophe for all. Enlightenment will never be attained in an indulgence in spiritual avarice.

In the early 1950’s in the USA television was a new craze. Quick to note the craze some enterprising guys still clutching their freshly printed Bible studies diplomas sought to serve the Lord by preaching their revealed word using that promising medium. The Lord seems to have been well pleased. For example, by May of 1985 the evangelical marketer Pat Robertson was even being featured in a cable magazine called On Cable. Filled with boundless self-righteousness and vanity Robertson declared that he sought to remake America into a “biblically based Nation” .His fiery right-wing politics was characterized by him as “conservative, religious, and a biblical point of view.” He did’t mention that the authors of those biblical views had written their point of view in the Bronze Age. Blissfully unconcerned, Robertson latched onto their point of view and it was so slickly packaged that by 1985 his organizational effort was siphoning in more that $70 million a year from bedazzled followers.

The long-standing Constitutional ideals and values placed upon diversity, variety and plurality by the American people were regarded by Robertson as being “extreme dangers” to a secular state. Respecting the rights of minorities was being threatened in his lofty view of how a “biblically based nation” was supposed to be run. Robertson pontificated that children in public schools were being taught “a collective philosophy that would lead citizens away from God toward Marxism, socialism, or a communistic type of ideology.” Oh he was talented at scaring the be-Jesus out of the gullible. In his humble opinion, therefore, he found it logical to denounce the Department of Education as being “unconstitutional.

Not shy about telling the nation what God wanted for it, Robertson asserted that the United States Supreme Court had departed from history and the constitution. He reasoned and worried publicly about the “encroachment” of the judiciary. they just didn’t seem favorable to the idea of a theocracy. Thus Robertson charted course to “engage” in what he termed “advocacy journalism,” and his Christian Broadcast Network news teams began spewing out reams of propagandist mini-documentaries with heavy “conservative” (read theocratic) messages. (He must have been delighted some years later when the Supreme Court became composed with five of the nine Justices being Republican and staunch Catholics. And it was a Republican dominated Supreme Court that would later tell the nation that our redeeming leader was to be the Born Again George W. Bush. Hallelujah!)

Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network news teams were headed by a man who was once editor of The Washington Times, which just happened at that time to be owned by the “Reverend” Sun Myung. This strange bedfellow happened to be loaded down with questionable North Korean connections. Not to fear. The “born again” population, Robertson averred, was seriously under-represented in our national government. Posing as a caring messenger, he declared, “The basic thing people do not understand is that evangelicals in America are not plotting to take away the rights of everyone else.” (Trying to eliminate the Department of Education would therfore simply be a god-inspired money saving move.)

Robertson worked hard at presenting himself as the modern age version of a biblical prophet. For sure the biblical prophets had dared to mix it up with politics–which was always in regard to a very select group of people. True to form, Robertson declared, “God is going to thrust his people (meaning fundamentalists) into positions they never dreamed they were capable of taking on.” (George W. Bush & Company certainly did seem to fulfill that prediction.) If the heavy tilt of religiously obsessed persons in governmental positions today is any indication, and if their corruption of true democratic principles is an example of a “biblical based nation”, can we truthfully say that their sly take over of the Republican Party in 1996 was “fairly benign”?

Well, today, several decades later, Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network and Regent University is pulling in over $400 million a year peddling the same old far-right political propaganda and implications of heaven’s special favoritism. But his empire is upstaged now by an old rival from the same earlier era which is now marketed as the Jerry Falwell Ministries/Liberty Counsel/Liberty University. That deceptive use of the word “liberty” is to sabotage the US Constitutional safeguard of church-state separation–the guarantee of religious freedom (liberty) for everyone. Peddling this anti-democratic baloney the Falwell empire today rakes in over $600 million a year.

Amazingly there are other claimers of God’s especial favors who wage war on every person’s freedom to worship as they choose–all of which rakes in multimillions a year for being staunchly un-American and pro theocratic. Take the so-called Focus on the Family that has the gall to endorse.Right Wing political candidates; it is lucrative and nets the Dobson “family” over $92 million a year. And there is the so-called Family Research Council (an off-shoot of Focus on the Family) that holds an annual “Value Voter Summit” and draws in over $14 million for their un-American stance. And there is the American Family Association that is against about everything that grants civil freedoms. The Reverend Donald Wildman who heads this “Association” boldly proclaims that separation of church and state was invented by Hitler, no less. Duh! For that heavenly enlightenment his anti-Constitution bias nets over $17 million.

Other grandiose named outfits include American Center of Law and Justice/Christian Advocated Serving Evangelism. That imposing mouthful defines the purpose, which is to force–force–fundamentalist beliefs into all public schools. Allied with the Pat Robertson empire in spirit and money-love it pulls in over $57 million a year. Justice is again implied with the so-called Alliance Defending Freedom, but the only Council for National Policy aimed for is to allow them to axe the federal law which bars tax-exempt churches from actively intervening in partisan elections. God, it seems favors that antidemocratic stance to the tune of over $47 million a year.

Ahh, but there are even more would-be religious oppressors out there. It is all strictly spiritual guidance, of course. Take the bewildering Concerned Women for America (affiliated with the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee) which indulges in heavy prejudices against the Creator’s intentionally wide-ranged diversities of life. This anti-feminist lobby was founded by Beverly (!) and Tim LaHaye, who (in 2015) raked in over $14 million for their discriminatory activities. Not content with that, Tim LaHaye also headed up the Council for National Policy which presumes to evaluate prospective GOP candidates. This membership-only outfit drew only a little more than $2 million. Still another agitator operation is Ralph Reed’s Foundation and Freedom Coalition whose primary purpose for existence is to attract more fundamentalists to vote. Their holy reward—over $3 million per year.

Oddly, these material obsessed, self-appointed faith merchants seem to have little appreciation for what Jesus is alleged to have preached. .For example, in Matthew 6;5 (King James version–among the many translations): “And when you pray do not be like the hypocrites for they pray standing…so that they may be seen of men. They (in that manner) have their reward.” And in Matthew 7:1-3 (KJ): “Judge not, that ye be judged. For with what judgment ye judged and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.”

Perhaps those faith merchants of fundamentalism should get their greedy noses out of their elaborately constructed feeding troughs and actually follow the teachings they claim to epitomize.

Remembering that religious right factions took over the US Republican Party in 1996, and that Republican dogmatists now (2015) control both houses of Congress, perhaps we should review their method of “progress.” The nation had thrust upon it in 2000–through dubious means which happened to be decided by five Republican-Catholic leaning Justices of the Supreme Court–confirming presidency upon a self-admitted born again believer who then quickly lied the nation into a needless and costly war, and who relished torturing captives taken in that drummed up war. After his devious eight year term in office was over the Republicans in Congress spent the next six years deliberately obstructing the bulk of law making which could have advanced the bulk of US citizens. Indeed, the 2014 Congress turned in the worst record of representation of the citizens in the nation’s history. With over half of Congress also being long-stocked by millionaires, perhaps we should look into past member’s track records.

There are 535 members of the United States Congress, members who are responsible for establishing the nation’s laws which are supposed to guarantee equal justice for all citizens, and which should also apply equally to the citizens’ representatives. There have always been freeloaders among the “membership,” and experts at double talk, addicts of pretentiousness, and those who do business under the table and/or behind closed doors. There have been untold episodes of conflicts of interest, endless self-promotions through a feeding trough called “ear marks,” childish tantrums of spite called “filibusters,” and even outright indifference for the nation’s Constitution. All of this can be and has been indulged in while taking a healthy salary (paid by taxpayers), self-granted government paid medical coverage, generous expense accounts, and even a self-granted pension plan (paid from tax payers’ wallets) after they exit their stint of “service”—even if only after one term. Speak of entitlements!

In other words, politics, like religion, attracts people with huge ego problems and who are divinely untroubled with any heavy personal scruples. Perhaps we should not be surprised, therefore, at these disquieting statistics of Congressional members (a sample is from 2011).

* Three members were incarcerated for assault
* Seven members were arrested for fraud
* Eight were arrested for shoplifting
* Fourteen were arrested on drug-related charges
* Twenty-one were defendants in lawsuits
* Seventy-one could not get a credit card because of bad credit
* Eighty-four had been arrested for drunk driving
* One hundred and seventeen were involved, either directly or indirectly, in bankrupting at least two businesses
* It is unclear how many were/are adulterers and/or brothel clients
* Too many in office continue to pretend that they have superior religious guidance for their material double dealings

The Founding Fathers of the United States well-knew that human nature is easily tempted. For this reason they sought to devise safeguards so every citizen of the new nation might have a better chance in the pursuit of happiness and freedom of spirit. Governing power, therefore, was not to rest in one person’s hands as in kingdoms, dictatorships or theocracies. Therefore three branches of government were specified to act as the hallowed trinity of democracy; the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. For the most part, that system has well-served a broader spectrum of people for the bulk of the nation’s 239 year history.

As religious faction have pushed more and more into the inner circles of government since 1996 (when religionists took over the Republican Party), emphasis has shifted from loyalty to a golden democracy into a furious pursuit of democratic gold for power seekers. In the process neither genuine democracy nor spiritual integrity have been enhanced. The founders of the US were altruistic, and they believed that serving in any of the three branches of government was to be taken on as an honor, not as a self-serving career move.

But from at least the late 1990s the thrust of those who have wormed their way into government positions from the Right have vigorously chopped at the very roots of democracy. And the carnival which this brand of politicians have made of politics is shown in the fact that they proved incapable of any real solutions to national problems. Instead they kept public attention muddied with faith system obsessions such as a woman’s right to choose, people’s’ lifestyles, and even who they should love. When their grab for power and materiality has been successful they shackled democratic principles in attempts to do such things as take away workers’ rights, deny senior the protection which the seniors had paid into for years, have sought to downgrade education standards, actually gave personhood rights to corporations, stolen from the poor and siphoned it to the rich, reduced environmental standards, and just sat on their hands and did nothing about gun shows where anyone could and can buy quantities of guns without any background checks.

The point of this mini review is that there is a desperate need for Congressional Reform, and that has been summed up in the proposed 28th Amendment to the US Constitution which covers the following eight considerations:

1) Term limits for Congress members consisting of twelve years only should be established, which would, however, include one of three possible options; A) two six-year Senate terms; B) six two-year House terms; C) one six-year Senate term and three two-year House terms.

2) There should be neither Tenure nor Pension provisions to Congress members for having held the honor of their office. Every Congressman receives a salary, usually with an expense account; and they continue to get paid for that past honor even after leaving office, which certainly dishonors the concept of true democracy. Indeed, a member of Congress can retire with the same yearly pay after only one term! Is that self-granted entitlement available anywhere else in the workplace?

3) Equally dishonoring of true democratic principles is the special favor Congress members bestowed upon themselves which frees “members” from participating in Social Security which is relied upon by the very people the “members” are supposed to serve. Democratic principles as conceived by the Founding Fathers require that Congress participates with the American people; that means that properly all funds which have been amassed for Congressional retirement payouts (from taxes) should always have been placed in the Social Security system just as it is for the private citizens whom they serve. That Congressional graft scheme must be corrected.

4) If Congress members want a retirement plan they may and should do as the rest of the American citizens are obliged to do and purchase that security cushion on their own. That self-granted Congressional retirement plan is but another graft scheme.

5) What average citizen has the ability to give themselves a pay raise? Why does Congress have the undemocratic clout to vote themselves a pay raise? Rightfully, Congressional pay should rise only by the lower of CPI–or by three percent. That’s what they impose on the elderly–but they have reneged even on that raise for those depending on Social Security.

6) Person elected as representatives of the people do not represent the people when they grant themselves special privileges. Another case in point, Congress enjoys a special health care system, and have excluded themselves from the Healthcare Reform which everyday citizens have to rely on. Properly the Congressional “members” should participate in the very same health care system as all other American citizens. Elected representatives are neither moral nor true to the democratic principles upon which the nation was founded by implying that they are a privileged class; they are servants of the people.

7) The legislative branch of government determines the laws of the land: that office does not mean that those in-office are above the law. Congressional members must comply equally by each and every law which Congress has imposed upon the American people. (As one little example which members slipped into law, did you know that Congressional members are exempt from being prosecuted for sexual harassment?)

8) All of these listed points considered here make it clear that the proper thing to do for true democratic governing is to void all past and present self-serving contracts of Congressmen for Congressmen, and this should be made effective immediately. The above mentioned seven points of undemocratic indulgences were self-contracted by Congress “members”–certainly their self-granted entitlements are not for the betterment of private citizens. It is crucial that American citizens stand up and confront their elected “officials” about these self-granted privileges the lawmakers enacted for themselves. These self-serving entitlements are in direct opposition to the laws they have imposed upon the rest of the nation’s citizens.

Man is such an egotistical animal that he believes that he can ignore Nature’s subtle warnings. Perhaps that is because our revered ego-driven, man-written “holy books” happen to assure us that man was given dominion over all life forms on this little planet. Unfortuanately, those ego driven priest authors happened to also believe that this little Earth, which they perceived to be flat, was the center of all Creation. Well, that ain’t exactly an in-depth assessment, and human ego is pretty much a whore.

This admittedly crude appraisal of human egotism and arrogance (and its attendant greed) was goosed by recent reports concerning the dilemma of some ordinary fish. Seem that man’s self-interest has seeped into various streams and rivers (in the Susquehanna, Delaware and Ohio river basins in the United States), which has resulted in turning some fish species into what is delicately termed intersex fish. Gasp! Some of them damn male fish were actually found to be carrying eggs! Well, let’s not start pounding the pulpit just yet. Something very basic is shown here; something which illustrates that everything which exists in Creation is composed of interchangeable polar elements and thus nothing is ever exclusively representative of one energy pole or its opposite.

As for the dilemma of the river fish population referred to, their altered sexual identity reflects the natural interchangeable aspects within the energy pool of all life. The home waters of the fish happen to have been blessed with hormones and hormone-mimicking chemicals which were compounded by man’s arrogance and greed. The waste waters that man dumps into the streams carry estrogenic chemicals (used in agriculture and released in animal wastes), and the internal organs of the fish which regulate the release of hormones are being redirected in the fish bodies.

Those ancient and much revered priest myth makers apparently were never informed by God about hormones or chromosomes or DNA, nor was it revealed to them how the chemistry of the brain actually determines a person’s physical-mental-sexual makeup. Unfortunately even today, two to three thousand years after “revealed word” was set down as sacredly unchallengeable, the blindly faithful ascribe to principles drafted by those unenlightened men and completely ignore what modern science research has truly revealed. For example, research shows that the effects of sex chromosomes and chemical sex hormones do not have an undeviating manner of lining up in accordance to one narrow general anatomical structure as the hateful religious prejudices love to pretend.

Furthermore, anatomist research shows that there are naturally considerable variations in the human brain–in its shape, thalamus, structure of the cerebrum, etc.–which are extremely variable and are as individual as fingerprints. This means that mental and/or sensory properties connected with brain structure may freely align within vastly different ranges, and thus no two persons will ever be exactly the same–including “identical” twins. So, as far as religious approval of racial or sexual expression goes, one size was never intended to fit all. To the horror of religious extremists, that almighty power which is diverse and variable in its workings (shall we say “democratic”), and which is personified as “God,” did not use a cookie cutter technique to fashion every person’s racial, physical or sexual category in life. Those old power-hungry priest-authors were obsessed with ensuring a continuing and expanding herd of followers to provide the priests’ private livelihood, so tolerance of diversity and variety was not lucrative for them. Instead of trying to understand that variety and diversity are the underpinnings of all Creation, they chose to spew endless reams of hatred from their pulpits. Stated in biblical terms, their ignorance runneth over.

Religious fanatics should awaken to the fact that there is a flexible holy code used in the production of all life–the code of the hormonal and chromosomal chemical “design” which decrees great necessity for diversity and variety in human physical, mental and emotional expression. This seems to be problematic only for those who choose to work themselves into melodramatic clamoring over anyone perceived to be too different from themselves due to their taught ego-titillating beliefs. Certainly the endless assortments of life forms which may be observed throughout the entire universe shows that the Creative Principle, commonly personified as “God” for manipulative reasons, holds no grudge or spite over “his” diverse and variable handiwork.

Within these God-allowable differences there is purposely left open the allowance–the tolerance–for all expressions of life and love. The hormone and chromosome chemicals control the total development of the body, brain and intelligence. And these continue to do so in a wide range of ways throughout the duration of each person’s lifetime. Therefore, for political and/or religious factions to pretend that “the Creator” expects only one narrow expression of life or love to be striven for by every individual is not true spiritual understanding, and it is not moral instruction. In fact, such an unyielding stance against life’s intended variety and diversity within Creation amounts to outright sacrilege.

As noted in earlier posts, sexual allusions are intertwined throughout the whole framework of Judeo-Christian scriptures to this day. Words such as sacrament, testament, and seminary, we have seen, are directly traceable to sexual implications. Despite their sly sexual allusions, the old scheming priest-authors and “prophets” who fathered these cults knew precious little regarding the holy secrets of sexual energy, and that ignorance proved to be blissful for them for it allowed them to practice all forms of intolerance in their drive to gain profits and control.

Perhaps the thousands of different man-invented faith systems (over 4000 have been recorded) would do well to remember what research science has also had revealed to researchers through intense study. The brain contributes only two percent of a person’s weight, but it needs and uses twenty percent of the body’s energy. But as religious fanatics and political extemists consistently prove, very little brain is needed for the body to function and bring distress upon everyone around them.

…or Remembering Recent Religious Attacks on Democracy
…or How America Was Led To Where We Are Today
…or Not Yesteryear’s GOP

In the United States the Republican Party fell completely under the control of the Religious Right in 1995 (as noted in the blog Diseased Politics, January 2011). With “biblical values” as their sham standard, there arose rather rapidly an increasing odor of corruption. But there had been warnings for years from concerned Republicans that the integrity of their party was in increasing peril.

As early as 1981 Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona had noted publicly, “…I can say with conviction that the religious issues of these groups have little or nothing to do with conservative or liberal politics. The uncompromising position of these groups is a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength.” Thirteen years later, in 1994, Goldwater warned, “If they (the unscrupulous Religious Right) succeed in establishing religion as a basic Republican Party tenet, they could do us in.” (From an interview in the 1994 US News & World Report.) Senator Goldwater was deeply troubled over the Religious Right’s persistent attacks on the US Constitution and feared for the basic freedoms of the American people. And in a 1994 interview from the Washington Post, Goldwater mused, “When you say ‘radical right’ today, I think of those moneymaking ventures like Pat Robertson who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss [democratic] politics goodbye.” Well, the religious right now owns the Grand Old Party and Goldwater’s warnings were proven prophetic.

Ominously, by 1995 Tom DeLay, who had become a born-again Christian in 1985, was convinced that he had been blessedly “returned to Christ,” and apparently with Christ’s influence DeLay was installed as majority whip of the House, against the wishes of House Speaker, Newt Gingrich. DeLay, so righteous and divinely principled, judged Gingrich (and the next House Speaker, Dick Amery) to be “uncommitted to Christian values.” DeLay was so divinely dogmatic in party discipline that he earned the nickname “The Hammer.” He took the nickname to his bosom, declaring that the hammer was one of the carpenter’s most valuable tools–a not-so-subtle inference that he reflected Jesus’ alleged occupation as a carpenter.

And the 1995 challenger for the minority whip position, Republican John Shadegg of Arizona, lamented, “We ceded our reform-minded principles in exchange for a …tighter grip on power.” (Shadegg went on, however, to oppose the Healthcare Reform Package, calling it a “Soviet-style health care,” and it would be tabled in October 2009.) It was in 1999 when DeLay was the House Republican Whip, that DeLay made Roy Blunt his chief deputy. Blunt, a stanch Baptist, is noted for voting in favor of mandatory school prayer, school vouchers, and for allowing the anti-democratic use of federal money (gathered from citizen taxes of every faith or no faith) to issue vouchers for private or religious schools. With DeLay and Blunt in lockstep maneuvering, the religious dominated GOP was whipped into a frenzy of wild spenders who chopped away at long-standing regulations, instigated tax cuts for their cohorts, and doled out lavish earmarks and appropriations. They were so obviously blessed.

In this same general timeframe, DeLay initiated his so-called K Street Project, a not-so-righteous endeavor to get trade associations and lobbying firms to employ Republican supporters and to be more active in raising money for the party. And DeLay’s chief deputy, Roy Blunt, faithfully acted as DeLay’s envoy to the lobbying community–all in an effort to ram a strong religious-flavored Republican agenda through Congress. Dreams of establishing a theocratic government burned fiercely in their hearts. All this web of religious wheeler-dealers helped push biblical values into Republican legislative agenda, but those sacred ties were destined to become entangled and knotted around the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal.

Abramoff, an orthodox Jew, had been a highly influential lobbyist and activist for the born again George W. Bush administration, but then Roy Blunt’s name came up in connection with the Abramoff investigation. While Blunt was dutifully opposing a woman’s right to choose and opposing gay marriages, he saw nothing un-spiritual in trying to insert language into the bill creating the Homeland Security Department which would aid the Philip Morris tobacco company. He was inspired to make it more difficult for cigarettes to be offered for sale on the internet, apparently having suddenly had it divinely revealed to him that if cigarettes were to be offered on the internet it would be a serious security threat for the nation. Of course this deep spiritual inspiration had nothing to do with the $202,909 that Philip Morris had donated to his campaign.

Unfortunately that deceitful web of pretended righteousness is still being spun over the workings of the US government today (2014). And with the self-serving Tea Party having been added to the spin of biblical values, genuine democratic principles of equal opportunity for all the nation’s diverse citizens are not likely to improve. Somehow these religionists’ tactics reminds one of the line from the children’s story–“Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

With this parasitic image we will close with another prophetic quote from former Republican Senator Barry Goldwater: “Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on Earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies.” (Italics added by this writer.) He concluded that interview with a thought on equality: “Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to [forced] conformity, and then to despotism.”

WAKE UP AMERICA! GENUINE DEMOCRACY IS UNDER ATTACK not only from foreign terrorists but more frighteningly also from within by divine deceivers.

Here we are well over a decade into the 21st century timeframe, still carrying the contaminated baggage of far-out ego-serving religious posturing that, like a recurring plague, attacked the populace of the USA at the close of the 20th century. In the United States the carriers of radical religionism swooped in upon and gained control of the once semi-reputable Republican Party in 1996, and like frenzied vampires they managed to sink their fangs into the veins of government.

Much of the current national religious pestilence in the USA today is traceable to television preachers who, early in the 1950s television entertainment technology, recognized the financial windfall that could be made by pretending to have hot wire connections with god and heaven. An early money-chasing televangelist, Pat Robertson, was hellbent on mixing personal faith with easy money and government rule. By October of 1992, having by then established a faith system empire, Robertson publicly suggested that god’s holy purpose could be achieved by grabbing political power. “We want,” he said, “as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996.” Indeed, televangelists across the nation were suddenly intent upon stirring up a religious war. And to make this needless conflict as self-fulfilling as possible the aggressive Christian right was pumping out reams of odious literature and preaching endlessly in the most shameless hate-inducing and fear-inducing rhetoric that they could produce. In this perverse take on the peaceful teachings credited to Jesus, the extremists were, and still are, every bit as vicious and paranoid and spiritually crude as the 2nd and 3rd century Christian cultists had been. (That is history without the religious whitewash.) The radical evangelist movement in the USA was thrown into high gear by characteristically promoting a demon-haunted view of the world, and they cultivated this mockery of spirit into a corrupt political force, all the while avoiding media scrutiny behind the government provided shield of religious equality.

From the mid 1600s timeframe of the Puritans, potential religious tyrants have yearned to impose a theocratic style government upon the North American continent. By the mid-20th century man’s technology had evolved to provide such holy pretenders with the means by which they could attract more spiritually aggressive persons into their ranks. Approaching the 21st century the Christian Right extremists in the USA then totally abandoned Jesus-advocated peace ethics and set about political hijacking. The longed for takeover of the Republican Convention in 1996 was accomplished for the most part through deceit and posturing–practically none of which was ever seriously commented upon in-depth by the news media. By that time, coincidently, many television and radio broadcasting stations had been quietly bought out by religious factions. The radical right-wingers were actually credited by radio and television commentators as being so divinely inspired. Genuine newscasters, however, feared to report on the dirty tactics which the radical religionists were using in fear that the religionists would bring charges of religious intolerance. Instead, the spineless media reported” on how well-behaved the pious pretenders were!

Kept well out of sight for the most part by the religious right schemers was their self-serving ideology and their warped vision of Jesus-salvation which they coupled with barbaric “biblical law.” Their strategy plans included the systematic disruption and eventual destruction of such things as public schooling, jury trials, and freedom of speech. And while these politically obsessed faith systems dodged any tax responsibility, they insisted that god approved the lowering of taxes, for those taxes happened to support what they sneeringly referred to as “entitlements,” which they said included Social Security, even though working citizens had paid into as government insurance for the elderly. And those who claimed to be divinely guided advocated that any such public welfare plans should be administered solely by private agencies—by which they meant their management. And they advocated the unconstitutional establishment of mandatory religious beliefs for all US citizens. In that recent 20th century timeframe the religious extremists then began a heavy campaign of propagandist tactics of vile name-calling and demonizing their opponents to suggest justification for their twisted Bible inspired actions. As noted in these postings, the Bible stories presented plenty of cut-throat examples to follow.

Today, in the early twenty-first century, slightly over two decades after the Religious Right’s takeover of the Republican Party, the United States staggers under the constant barrage of religious fixations that have contaminated and degenerated the nation’s governing bodies. Under the extreme religious right tyranny—which still is not being brought to account in the public media or by the judicial system—our once great nation has been led into the quicksand trap in which democratic spirit and moral regard for others is being systematically garroted.

The religious extremists have been indulging in an orgy that attempt to dis-embody democratic principles that have long protected private citizens’ spiritual and physical liberties. Under the ethics used by the radical religious right, the US wound up with a born-again President thrust upon them (through direct and unconstitutional interference of political processes by Republicans and Catholic dominated Supreme Court Justices). The questionable legality of that Republican “electoral victory” of 2000 was loudly asserted to be the result of “religious transformation of America.” Some strangely convenient circumstances then soon allowed this victorious party to pilot the nation into an illegal war. The Bible-led presidential “advisors,” most of whom had been draft dodgers themselves, were then hawkish in the extreme and were certain that god approved their rush to tyranny. Lying, backroom deals, deregulation of “free market,” lifting rules off Wall Street regulation, pretending there were military solutions to any diplomatic crisis, throwing increasing limitations upon the working class citizens, refusing any mannered debates of dialogue, etc., etc., revealed their open contempt for true democratic principles and exposed their open disregard for genuine citizen liberty or spiritual equality.

So how and where did democratic equal justice become effectively emasculated by the radical Right to the point that today the true democratic principles that made this nation a beacon of freedom are still being systematically attacked? Who has been held responsible and accountable for all the traitorous sabotage of democratic principles? Why has no one been investigated for: 1) all the lies and criminality that led the nation into two illegal wars?; 2) for the prisoner abuse and the authorization of cowardly torture that the religiously inspired political climate produced?; 3) for the robbing of dignity and capabilities of the working people?; 4) for the attempted destruction of the “middle class” while hypocritically trumpeting “family values”? 5) for wasting trillions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures by the Pentagon; 6) for supporting the vampires of Wall Street? 7) for permitting subsidy extortion such as by oil, coal, etc.?; 8) for pretending that corporations have private citizen rights?; 9) for driving down wages and breaking worker unions? 10) for ignoring how corporations “cook” their books?; 11) for attempted sabotage of Social Security benefits which all working people have already paid into? 12) for bringing the nation to the brink of bankruptcy to accomplish government overthrow? Etc., etc., etc.

The United States of America was founded by courageous, thoughtful, dedicated men who recognized from researching the history of the Dark Ages—the Inquisition era of European history—that governments dominated by some religious faction always turn into a nightmare of senseless misery for everyone except those in the religious hierarchy. Many Near East countries today—in this 21st century—are desperately struggling to throw off the identical type of oppressive and cruel religious/political governments as the Religious Right/Tea Party dominated Republican Party is now attempting to impose upon the United States citizens.

These Christian extremists who claim to be biblically guided obviously have their vision clouded over with power-lust, obstinacy and egotism. Perhaps these spiritually blind agitators should be provided with LARGE TYPE editions of the Christian texts they claim to represent. Then, if they would also stop their clenched fist shenanigans, browse through a few verses that are actually wise and which they apparently conveniently ignored, such as: Matthew 5:9; “Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of god.” In Luke 2:14; “…peace among men of good will.” Romans 14:19; “Let us therefore pursue the things which make for peace.” 1 Peter 3:1; “…let him seek peace and pursue it.”

And finally, these spiritually confused power seekers who yearn to force their pretentious religious interpretation upon others, read Matthew 6:5; “And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing…that they may be seen by men…when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father (the Creative Source personified) which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly. But when you pray, use not vain repetition, as the heathens do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” (Phraseology modernized.)

And if those holy pretenders would cease their chest-thumping long enough to seriously observe the universe around them they might obtain a smidgen of much-needed humility. With even a dash of true spiritual reserve they would see the proof displayed in that awesome panorama that all things are equal before that ultimate creative power. It is that equality of spirit which is reflected only in a true democracy.